Instead of her normal “opening statement” on Saturday night’s “Justice With Judge Jeanine,” she enlisted the aid of three conservative congressmen to try to take down an unusual target for any Fox News host or GOP representative.

But a statement Rep. Trey Gowdy made last week about the “Russian collusion” investigation not only had Pirro “stunned” and “confused.” It had her spitting fire.

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In an interview Tuesday night with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, Gowdy not only said the FBI had done nothing wrong when investigating Donald Trump’s campaign, he said the probe had “nothing to do with Donald Trump.”

But Pirro wasn’t buying that. She said she considers Gowdy a personal “hero,” but said he’s dead wrong on this one, and she brought on three prominent House Republicans to back her up.

Not one of them thought the FBI and the Justice Department under former President Barack Obama had behaved honestly during the 2016 race, and not one was shy about letting Pirro – and the rest of America – know it.

Mark Meadows, the South Carolina rep. who chairs the conservative Freedom Caucus, told Pirro the Obama Justice Department’s behavior during the campaign was unprecedented, and wouldn’t be acceptable in any context.

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“Whether it’s spying on the Trump campaign, or Bernie Sanders campaign, or any presidential campaign, it’s wrong,” he said. “And what we do have is a growing body of evidence that would suggest just the opposite of what my good friend Trey Gowdy said, is indeed the FBI and DOJ did do things improperly … And we’ve got to make sure we get to the bottom of it.”

Check out the segment here:

Jordan, an Ohio representative who’s made no secret of his boiling anger at the FBI for its behavior during the the 2016 election, pounded the FBI explanation that Gowdy had defended.

If the FBI was investigating Russian espionage rather than the Trump campaign, he said, why keep it a secret from the people who should know?

“Why not tell the Trump campaign? Why not tell the candidate himself? Why not tell the guy who’s now president of the United States, ‘hey, we think Russians are trying to infiltrate your campaign’?” Jordan told Pirro.

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De Santis, the Florida representative running for governor of the Sunshine State with Trump’s endorsement, summed up his feelings about Gowdy’s statement with a view most of America could agree with.

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“I disagree with his analysis… They launched this massive intelligence investigation… the start of this is as thin as you could possibly be,” he said.

“I would also say, there was more information and evidence that would require you to surveil Hillary’s campaign than Trump’s campaign. I mean, look at the national security implications with the emails. Look at the Clinton Foundation. Look at the fact they were paying a foreign national, Christopher Steele, to collect dirt on candidate Donald Trump. And yet they never took any aggressive action vis a vis Hillary.

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“It’s a big double standard.”

It’s the kind of double standard the country has come to expect from the media, but hearing an argument backing the FBI from a conservative like Gowdy last week was something different. Even Andrew McCarthy, a career prosecutor and columnist at National Review, jumped in with a piece that called out Gowdy on the topic.

In the end, though, Meadows summarized the situation perfectly.

“All the evidence would suggest that the FBI and DOJ are not coming clean,” he said. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of it.”

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And when they do, Judge Jeanine is probably going to be even more furious.

Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade over 30 years to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn't need a printing press to do it.